


Sway Over Time

by Kate_Reid



Series: Things They'll Never See [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Implied Kylo Ren/Rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2018-10-25 12:37:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10764423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Reid/pseuds/Kate_Reid
Summary: Scenes in the space between Ben Solo and Kylo Ren.I feel like it's necessary to say that the final chapter--all but the very last paragraph--was written before I saw TLJ. I'd tried so hard to finish this before I got jossed, but for many reasons, I couldn't. Then, when TLJ came out, I found that I was weirdly prescient, but just enough off that this doesn't ring quite true. I didn't even want to post that last chapter, but I was encouraged to do so by someone whose opinion I respect. I was going to let it fade away into that AO3 graveyard, but I've been recently encouraged by some kind words I received from beloved authors on another work. I'll end it here, though.





	1. Chapter 1

He would not wear his blackest robes, for ash and death are black. And ash and death were on his hands as he landed his shuttle and staggered out of it. He’d made sure to change into a simple grey tunic and pants before he made his run for it.

So many things had brought him to this point. His secret trip to the ruins of Alderaan, his father’s last words to him, his conversation with his grandfather’s spirit, the alternate possibilities that the Force had flashed before his eyes as he lay in the snow--all had led to his increasing doubt in the wisdom and authority of the Supreme Leader.

His loyalty to Snoke had withered away, and he was left with nothing but questions and crushing grief. He’d railed against himself time and again for the things taken from him and the things he’d stolen from himself--the incandescent rage as his grandfather’s lightsaber whizzed past his head, the snarling jealousy and deep sadness as he realized that the scavenger had earned his father’s esteem in a way he felt he never had, the love still in his father’s eyes even as he stood, impaled and shocked, the courage and newborn sense of self he’d felt in the traitor. This last rankled the most, he found--the traitor had found a liberty and free will that, by all rights should have been ground out of him. 

Despite not having been through the grueling stormtrooper program and its near-thorough destruction of individuality, Ben Solo never felt that he had free will. From the first time he’d felt his parents’ fear of him, Ben felt straitjacketed. His mother was always away, spending more time caring for the galaxy than for her little son who was a little terrified of his own power. His father was usually off on clandestine, half-legal missions, and then after the New Republic became somewhat stable, he was out on the racing circuit, mentoring and cheering on everyone but his own son, who only wanted to be loved.

So, when a voice whispered to Ben that his parents were scared of his abilities and sent him away because they weren’t sure of him, at first he was skeptical. Ben had, after all, felt his parents’ love for him even as they treated him gingerly, like a thermal detonator they were trying to transport without exploding it. But the voice convinced him that the love was false and they didn’t want to be burdened by a child with power neither understood.

Ben came to view his time with his Uncle Luke as a punishment for the outbursts Ben was prone to when he felt too much. The voice egged on his misgivings, making him sullen, resentful, and withdrawn. He shunned the other students at the academy and rebuffed his uncle’s attempts to draw him out. 

And then . . . then, when the truth of his mother’s parentage came out, several things settled into place in Ben’s mind. Han and Leia feared him because they knew that he, Ben, was Darth Vader’s true heir, as his mother and uncle had been too weak to embrace the near-limitless power that was their birthright. The voice encouraged this with its implications that there was only one way to access his grandfather’s legacy. So, Ben did what he needed to do to leave his uncle’s school.

He managed to mask his fear of those presented to him as knights, battling bloodily to establish his supremacy and become a master. He had earned his new name through gore and pain--Ben Solo was dead, but Kylo Ren lived.

Now, though, Kylo Ren lay on the surface of a planet unfamiliar to him, not sure if he wanted to die. He didn’t know if his comm had gone through, but wasn’t sure he cared. He lost the battle with his eyelids just as he heard the engines of another ship near him. Had the First Order found him? He’d checked for trackers, but was a little too woozy and hurried to be thorough. Or had his desperate transmission been received? He’d hung his hope on his years-old knowledge of the protocols and codes his mother favored.

His consciousness had just about given out when he heard boots pounding toward him, stopping next to his head. Kylo Ren forced his eyes open, only to find his field of vision filled with the scavenger. If he’d had the strength to, he would have groaned; she always managed to catch him at his worst--Starkiller, Dantooine, all the places they’d battled. His reluctance to harm her had nearly gotten him killed several times. Oh, oh, she was yelling at him.

“‘S’not an ambush,” he croaked. “Jus’ me.”

The scavenger-- _Rey_ \--tutted in disgust. “You’re a mess.” Disdain dripped from her voice, but the Force told him that she was at least a little concerned for him. He allowed himself a tiny bit of satisfaction that she might feel a tiny bit for him.

His feelings were one of the things he’d had to reconcile while he made his peace with the decisions he made and the actions he’d come to know he had to take. The actions had been taken--Snoke’s head in his shuttle’s cargo hold and the utter chaos he’d left on the _Finalizer_ were proof of that. But his feelings weren’t anywhere near reconciled. He’d felt drawn to the sca-- _Rey _\--as soon as he’d encountered her on Takodana. Her power was the only other that he’d come across that matched his--not even that of the Supreme Leader in person, not that of any of the Knights of Ren.__

__As soon as he knew that she wasn’t going to kill him on sight, his body sagged with relief, and the adrenaline that had been sustaining him suddenly ran out. To his chagrin and the few shreds of embarassability he had left, tears began to flow from his eyes. He couldn’t stop them or control them, and he didn’t even have the strength to try and hide them._ _

__“Stop your crying,” commanded the scavenger gruffly. “We’ve got to get away from here. If you were telling the truth in your transmission, it won’t be long before the First Order comes after you.”_ _

__He didn’t even really have enough left in him to be mortified over the scavenger seeing his tears. The Force told him that she felt pity for him, but still a deep, deep mistrust that only made more of his tears flow. He knew it was unfair of him; he’d spent too long as a masked terror to inspire trust, especially in the woman he’d battled so many times. If she had any inkling that they weren’t actually fighting to the death, she must have dismissed it as wishful thinking. And he couldn’t blame her._ _

__He knew she was right as he attempted to pull himself together. He almost snorted as he picked up on her thought that he looked good down there. So, she liked him near-helpless at her feet, did she? Well, he supposed, he did, too. Everything that had happened to him in the last several hours was unusual enough that this realization didn’t even register on his list of Concerns._ _

He was half-carried, half-dragged back onto his own shuttle. Tossed back onto his own familiar floor, he had no time to protest or explain himself to the sca--Rey--ohwhatthekriffeverdarkness. His exhaustion finally defeated him. 


	2. Chapter 2

Kylo Ren had been dragged out of the snow by two stormtroopers. General Hux stood over him, arms folded, supervising with a sneer as he was hauled onto the stretcher, then hoisted into the shuttle. Ren remembered being handled roughly, as time was of the essence on an exploding planet.

He finally came to in the Finalizer’s medbay, gulping at the insufficient airflow provided by the mask over his mouth and nose, arms and legs strangely heavy. When his mind caught up to his surroundings, he realized that he was in a bacta tank. He surrendered himself again to the compelling darkness.

When he was finally pulled out of the bacta tank and laid on a medbay cot, the medical droid fussed over him, making sure he was arranged and covered just so. The human doctor brought him a hand mirror, which he thought was strange, but he looked anyway. Oh, yes. The scavenger had landed a blow that split his face diagonally. One of the fleeting thoughts he’d had, lying in the snow, was that this scar would destroy his looks, such as they were. He’d always gotten the sense that his features were odd, unusual, too much. Just one more reason to resent his parents, he supposed. He was the son of two objectively attractive people, but something had gone wrong. His lineage was evident in his face, but all of the genes had gotten together and worked against him, making the worst possible combinations of his parents’ faces. He had his mother’s expressive brown eyes, but also an oddly exaggerated version of his father’s strong nose and an uneven jawline that he could only assume was a failed battle between both bone structures. How like Han Solo and Leia Organa to fight it out and leave him the only one permanently affected. 

But when he looked in the mirror, instead of the expected terrifying trench through his facial flesh was a thin line, barely noticeable if he didn’t stare too hard. 

Just as he was marvelling at the wonders of bacta, the mirror was snatched from his hand.

“Bacta can only do so much, Ren. It’s not reconstructive surgery. Unfortunately, that’s still your face,” came a cruel voice above him. Hux. Ren rolled his eyes.

“What, Hux?” snapped Ren. “Surely you’ve better things to do, what with the failure of your weapon and the destruction of a huge part of First Order infrastructure.”

Hux blanched, and Ren smirked as much as he could; his face was still a little numb.

“Whatever, Ren,” Hux snarled. “I only dragged your sorry arse out of the snow on the Supreme Leader’s orders. You are to report to him to finish your training.”

Of course. Ren was not looking forward to that, which was probably another failure on his part. He shouldn’t dread his training so. The Supreme Leader was only trying to purify him and make him the ideal Force Vessel he should be, channelling his power to perfect the galaxy through the physical might of the First Order. 

He needed purification. He needed to be purged of the taint of his father, of the scavenger. He needed to be free of his pain, the pull of the feelings raised by the love in his father’s eyes, the pull of the scavenger’s potential as he watched the Force flow through her.

If he were to be honest, Han Solo’s death did not free him from his torment. At the moment of Han’s death, all Kylo Ren felt from him was love and concern and a desire to help. Meeting his father’s eyes as he was impaled on the crackling red blade was a mistake. This was not his final surrender to the Dark. This was a whole new torrent of questions. The death of his father had not calmed the Force within him; it had, instead, illuminated pathways heretofore unknown.

The new pathways burned to light in his mind, even as he dropped to his knees, felled by his Wookiee uncle’s bowcaster. He willed his mind to forget Chewbacca’s cry of betrayal, the scavenger’s wail of despair, all the sounds and sights that poured into him. He had to get up, to fight on. There was no turning back now, no respite. He would battle on or he’d die. He’d bought his fate with his father’s blood.

He didn’t even notice Hux’s about-face and pompous exit of the medbay. His thoughts were occupied by the idea of the continuation of his training. Snoke favored pain as a teaching tool. Based on his failures, Ren knew that he was owed a world of hurt. The pain was meant to punish him, but also to hone his mind and powers further, and to bring him ever deeper into the Dark. 

However, to Ren? Fact of the matter? His recent experiences had brought him to a point that he suspected that Snoke had not wanted or expected him to reach. 

There was no black or white, Dark or Light. The Force was the Force, in and on and over and through everything in the Universe. It simply existed. The way it was used depended on the one who wielded it. To set Force-wielders onto two sides was overly simplistic. Force-wielders, one and all, were simply beings, doing the best they could with what they had, coming at any situation they faced with whatever was at their disposal. The way they decided to use it was a choice. 

Everything was in the Force. Love and hate, despair and joy, the entire range of emotion. The Force didn’t differentiate between good and bad; it just flowed, carrying all of those feelings on the pulse that brought life and death and everything in between. It was everything, it was nothing. The impulse that prompted existence was also the thing that brought about death. Threads of the Force wound through each instance of life in the Universe, but they just were. Outcomes depended solely on the free will of beings. Beings attuned to the Force or not, their actions created waves and affected the flow.

Kylo Ren’s experiences sent him to the conclusion that the Force was potential and nothing else. The Force was potential and everything else. That idea explained the nameless feeling that rose up in him when he was driven to the edge of the chasm with the scavenger. What he felt within her was neither Dark nor Light. It was simply the impetus. In the moment, he’d reveled in the idea of pure power, with no direction and no restrictions imposed upon it.

In that moment, watching her face as she let the Force flow through her, he couldn’t help but ask to teach her. Teach her how? He didn’t know. Teach her what? He wasn’t sure. But he knew that he didn’t want Snoke’s influence on her, didn’t want Snoke's bony fingers in her mind, shaping and stunting her power, causing her pain and warping her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short, but it's a natural stopping point.

Kylo Ren knew it was too late for him. His murder of his father had pushed him through some invisible barrier. That was what Snoke had intended, of course. 

Well, he was through the barrier, but came out the other side more uncertain, which he was absolutely sure was not what Snoke had intended. His momentary awe at the scavenger’s untapped power had left him vulnerable and led to his defeat, led to his humiliation in Starkiller’s snow while he watched his father’s ship fly over his head. 

Funny, that. Within a few minutes, he’d lost his inheritance from both sides of his family. His grandfather’s lightsaber had flown inches over his face, and his father’s beloved Millennium Falcon had flown meters over his head.

And he’d lost both to the scavenger. Somehow, the things that should have been his passed over him and found her. He was simultaneously awed and jealous, hurt and intrigued.

Alone again, and in and out of consciousness, Kylo Ren realized that he was sprawled on the floor of his own shuttle. He couldn’t bring himself to care, couldn’t hear himself think over the things caught in his mind.

Did he really want to wield the blue blade of Anakin Skywalker? Built in the light, under the aegis of the restrictive Jedi Order, it was a weapon that he wasn’t entirely sure he could raise comfortably. But he knew now that Light and Dark were constructs of the living.

He knew the lightsaber should be his, but he wasn’t sure how it could be. He’d felt so much energy on it besides his grandfather’s; the saber also bore echoes of his uncle and even of his father, who had used it to save said uncle.

Unbidden, more images came to him--snow and frost not unlike Starkiller--the blue blade in Han Solo’s hands, wielded not as an elegant weapon, but like a crude tool, his father stuffing his uncle into the carcass of a dead beast. The blue blade, raised by his uncle against his grandfather’s red blade, the hilt soaring off to oblivion, still clutched in his uncle’s disembodied hand. The blue blade in the hands of his grandfather, who was still handsome, a small scar over his eye giving him a rakish look. The blue blade, held again by his grandfather, this time over lava. 

The blue light filled his vision and he was unconscious again. His dreams drifted through memories. Some of the memories belonged to him, some belonged only to the Force.


	4. Chapter 4

His consciousness came and went, but each time he came to, he was privy to snatches of Rey’s thoughts. Even in his weakened state, he didn’t need to expend any effort to access her mind. She thought she was alone.

She couldn’t seem to keep her mind off the murder she’d witnessed--Rey had watched Kylo Ren commit cold-blooded patricide before her very own eyes. She had screamed in horror as Han Solo’s body dropped into the abyss. 

Watching his actions through her eyes brought a new level of guilt and anguish. He allowed oblivion to take him again.

Rey didn’t know how to feel about her human cargo, especially when she could feel him intermittently regaining consciousness, his fuzzy mind awash in pain and shame.

As angry and horrified as she’d been to witness the death of the man she’d idolized for years but only knew for days, she couldn’t stop thinking about the face of that man’s killer. He hadn’t looked angry or triumphant or satisfied as he drove his hissing red blade through his father’s middle. 

Rey wasn’t naive--she’d seen her fair share of death and murder on Jakku. She knew the difference between the face of one who killed because he enjoyed it and the face of one who killed because he felt he had no choice.

Kylo Ren’s face as he stabbed his father was the face of one backed into a corner. Rey did not see satisfaction in his eyes, enjoyment in his mouth, or triumph in his body. No, she saw turmoil in his eyes, resignation in his mouth, and sadness in his body.

From her frequent talks with Leia, Rey had learned quite a bit about the General’s lost son. Ben had been a big-hearted boy who worried about every being in the galaxy. In order to ease his anxiety, Leia had patiently explained to him that he was not responsible for the welfare of every galactic citizen; he’d nodded his understanding with his vast brown eyes still full of questions. The General’s own brown eyes, so similar to his, had misted as she recalled her son’s compassion.

It was as if Leia spoke to Rey of a complete stranger--Rey couldn’t reconcile Leia and Han’s sweet son with the masked terror she’d encountered. But as Rey thought a little harder about it . . . she did see a bit of that boy in Kylo Ren’s unmasked face. She remembered thinking that she understood why he covered himself--there was simply too much vulnerability in his eyes, his mouth. Everything he felt was immediately apparent in his expressions. Rey recalled his awe as he watched her find herself in the Force. 

When she thought about it later, Rey didn’t know how much of her memory of that moment had to do with what she saw with her own eyes or what she felt through the Force. It was entirely possible that her anger had seen a cool, confident murderer, but her Force-empathy had seen a frightened boy, ashamed and terrified of what he’d done.

Rey felt another wave of him, a weak surge of his groggy mind returning once again, reminding her that she wasn’t alone. From time to time, images floated to the surface. So many questions. 

She wanted to ask about the red-headed general he screamed at, then finally ran through with his red blade.

She wanted to know more about the reasons for his flight. 

She desperately wanted to ask why that flight took him to an odd, gold-robed man upon a great throne and why he stood before that throne, allowing himself to be near-crippled by the lightning that arced from the wizened figure’s fingers.

And then, she knew. She felt Kylo Ren’s synapses spark, as bright as the horrible lightning from his memory. Snoke had sat upon his throne and demanded _her._ Kylo Ren had murdered his co-commander and set himself before the lightning for _her._


	5. Chapter 5

Kylo Ren felt himself shifting restlessly wherever he was. And then he found himself, on the floor of his own ship, which was slaved to whatever the hells the scavenger had been flying. 

Oh. Oh. She knew. He felt that she knew. Involuntarily, the corner of his mouth drew up when he knew she was thinking of him with wonder and awe rather than hate and fear.

In that moment, it was worth it.

If Kylo Ren had been asked how it felt to have Force lightning course through him, he wouldn’t have been able to say. How does it feel to have every nerve and thought and feeling explode in pain and burning? An explanation was the least of his worries after that experience.

No, a thorough accounting of events was the farthest thing from his mind. And who would believe him? Who would accept his story without question? Who wouldn’t scoff when he said, “I was nearly overcome by Snoke’s power; I thought his lightning would kill me, but then I reached deep and found something even more powerful?”

But. It’s the actual truth. When Snoke commanded Kylo Ren to bring the girl to him, Kylo Ren resisted. And Snoke resisted his resistance.

When Snoke filled Kylo Ren’s corporeal body with excruciating, incandescent, shining, blinding pain, Kylo Ren opposed him.

When Snoke filled Kylo Ren’s Force-sense with terrible. near-unbearable, agonizing, harrowing pain, Kylo Ren opposed him.

Kylo Ren thought he was familiar with his own relationship to the Force. Yes, sometimes he prayed for the Dark to hear him better than it seemed to. Sometimes, he wished his connection was clearer. 

But the clarity rushed to him in an instant; it reached him before he even knew. When he knew? He had dropped his lightsaber, raised his hands, wielded the Force at his command in a desperate, flailing motion . . . and his power cascaded from his fingertips as searing bolts of pure energy.

Kylo Ren’s lightning met Snoke’s lightning in mid-air. Sparks flew. The ground quaked and the air filled with the scent of ozone.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I feel like it's necessary to say that the final chapter--all but the very last paragraph--was written before I saw TLJ. I'd tried so hard to finish this before I got jossed, but for many reasons, I couldn't. Then, when TLJ came out, I found that I was weirdly prescient, but just enough off that this doesn't ring quite true. I didn't even want to post this chapter, but I was encouraged to do so by someone whose opinion I respect. I was going to let it fade away into that AO3 graveyard, but I've been recently encouraged by some kind words I received from beloved authors on another work. I'll end it here, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like it's necessary to say that this chapter--all but the very last paragraph--was written before I saw TLJ. I'd tried so hard to finish this before I got jossed, but for many reasons, I couldn't. Then, when TLJ came out, I found that I was weirdly prescient, but just enough off that this doesn't ring quite true. I didn't even want to post this chapter, but I was encouraged to do so by someone whose opinion I respect. I was going to let it fade away into that AO3 graveyard, but I've been recently encouraged by some kind words I received from beloved authors on another work. I'll end it here, though.

He put it off as long as he could, despite yearning for his training to be complete. Dread bit at the edges of that yearning, though. He dreaded Snoke rifling through his mind and finding the memories of his humiliation in the frosty woods of a doomed planet.

It wasn’t his combat loss to a scavenger and a renegade stormtrooper that embarrassed him, though he often found himself replaying the battle in his mind as he trained with his lightsaber. Better footwork here, a stronger block there, and he might have been victorious. 

No, Ren’s mortification came from his doubt. Snoke couldn’t--shouldn’t see the contents of his head during and after that desperate fight as a planet died beneath them. Snoke shouldn’t see the moment where the seed of disbelief took root--that second where he heard his grandfather’s voice, that instant where his father was closer to him than he’d been in years--those moments when possibilities scrolled by him like a holovid, the memories tied to that blue-bladed saber . . . 

No, Snoke didn’t need to be privy to any of that. 

He felt sure that Snoke could draw the treachery from him and make him pure. Snoke already knew of Ren’s internal conflict--Snoke could make it easier, remove all these complications, unburden Ren without even knowing. It would be painful, but that was to be expected. Ren had learned to harness his pain and make it work for him. 

Pain had been a constant. Ever since Snoke had shown him the truth, Kylo Ren knew pain--where many would differentiate between pain and lack of pain, Ren’s mind only registered different levels of pain. He understood that his agony was a means to an end. Snoke had told him that up front--Ren’s power was wasted on his uncle’s slow, restrictive training.

Ren had been convinced that Luke’s academy was slowly sucking the best from him. His passion, his temper, his quicksilver moods? Snoke made sure he knew that those things were strengths--not weaknesses, as Luke would have him believe. His uncle taught him that his very self was something to be tamped down and suppressed--his own soul should be offered up to the cause of serenity, sacrificed to the idea of peace, held hostage to the concept of his emotions as enemies. 

So, when he awoke to said uncle standing over him, weapon drawn, the doubts in his mind didn’t allow him to be surprised, but the hope in his heart allowed him to be hurt and disappointed. He’d only really half-believed Snoke’s insinuations that his own family didn’t trust him. But the truth towered over his bed, broke his heart, then swiftly sent fury to fill in the gap left by his despair.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to my fantastic beta, Lyssa. Thanks also to Noel Gallagher, Oscar Wilde, and Harry Styles.


End file.
